• Adapt to a new economy
• Differentiate and define your customer
• Master retailing basics
• Market and advertise
• Make your business a shopping destination
• Build your brand
• Increase sales in a poor economy
• Merchandise strategically – including window displays

• Effective ways to work together
• What to do before, during and after the event
• Do’s and don’ts
• Success stories from other towns
• Best ways to maximize profits

About Marc Willson

Marc Willson is the Retail and Restaurant Consultant working for the Virginia Small Business Development Center (VSBDC) Network and brings 40 years of retail experience to bear in helping retail, restaurant, and tourism-related small businesses refine and promote their concepts to the public. In his role working with the VSBDC, Marc meets personally with small businesses throughout Virginia as part of the Small Town and Merchant Program, providing confidential one-on-one counselling in partnership with the local SBDC office. Since 2009, Marc has successfully launched the STAMP program in twenty five additional states.

Marc started his retail career in 1975 as co-owner of the largest distributor of Earth Shoes in the United States. As Earth Shoes went the way of the Pet Rock, Marc joined Britches of Georgetowne as a sales person and finished a 12-year career there as Vice President of Operations after growing the company from 9 stores to 109. He then joined Circuit City and opened 83 mall-based Circuit City Express stores. At Crown Books he managed 250 bookstores as Vice President and General Manager. The son of the founder of Circuit City asked him to be President and CEO of the Bicycle Exchange, a chain of bicycle superstores that he had invested in and in dire need of a turnaround.

Marc then took his career into cyberspace as the Vice President of Merchandising of an online college bookstore specializing in textbooks and emblematic apparel. As President of Storetrax, Inc., he managed an Internet site dedicated to landlords and developers leasing retail space. Then he travelled to Dallas, Texas, to open the world’s first energy efficiency store for Current Energy, LLC, a company funded by Ross Perot, Jr. The store helps small businesses and residential customers reduce their consumption of gas, water and electricity. Marc joined the SBDC in 2009 as a Retail and Restaurant Industry Consultant and has delivered over 500 seminars and assisted over 1200 retailers throughout country.

He is known as an operation’s expert and has counselled over 1200 retailers and restaurants in best practices, financials and cash flow, marketing and customer service, customer loyalty, merchandising , window dressing, buying, social media and just plain old how to treat customers. In an attempt to keep small retailers relevant during this turbulent economic time, we focus on how to get found, why their offering is unique, who are their customers and how to reach to them. His client’s revere his honesty, delivered with the genteel manner of a southern gentleman.